On the banks of Red River the scheme took like wild-fire.  All Red River people were to make fortunes.  There were to be high wages and work for everybody.  Wages were increased, and men were receiving nearly four dollars a day.  Money became plentiful and provisions became dear and also scarce.  The employees, higher and lower, became intoxicated with their success, as they now also became really intoxicated and fell into reckless habits.  The work was neglected, and the enterprize collapsed.  This was the earliest boom on Red River banks.  Failure was sure to follow so mad a scheme.  The buffalo wool cloth which it cost some twelve dollars and a half to manufacture, partly in Red River Settlement and partly in England, was sold for little more than one dollar a yard.  The L2,000 of capital was all swallowed up, L4,500 of debt to the Hudson’s Bay Company was never paid, the scheme became a laughing stock in England, and failure and misery followed its collapse in the Colony.

At this time the French-Canadian settlement at Pembina was induced to remove to St. Boniface on the Red River, where they gathered around their new priest, Provencher, to whom they became much attached.

The Selkirk Trustees, in every way, continued ungrudgingly to advance the interests of the Colony, but their plans, though often mere theories failed more from extravagance and want of good men to execute them than from any other cause.

Believing that farming was the thing needing cultivation in a country with so rich a soil, the Colonizers began the Hayfield farm on the north bank of the Assiniboine River, near what is now the outskirts of the City of Winnipeg, a little above the present Agricultural College buildings.  Beginning with an expensive salary for Manager Laidlaw, the promoters erected ample farm buildings, barns, yards and stables.  Importations were made of well-bred cattle and horses.  Several years of mismanagement and helplessness resulted from this trial of a model farm, and it was given up at a total loss to the proprietors of L3,500.  The Assiniboine Wool Company was next started, but failed before the first payment of stock took place, without damage to anyone, so that, as was remarked, there was “much cry and little wool.”  The Flax and Hemp Company was the next unfortunate enterprise.  This failed on account of there being no market, so that farmers never reaped the successful crops which they had grown.  An expedition was made to Missouri, under Messrs. Burke and Campbell, to introduce sheep into the settlement.  As the fifteen hundred sheep purchased had to be driven 1,500 miles to their destination on Red River, only two hundred and fifty of the whole flock survived.  Failure after failure taking place did not prevent the formation of a Tallow Company, which resulted in the loss of L600 to L1,000, and a considerable sum was spent also in an abortive attempt to open up a road to Hudson’s Bay, a scheme which Lord